William Mulholland (September 11 1855 – July 22 1935) was the head of
Los Angeles Department of Water and PowerThe Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is the largest municipal utility in the United States, serving over 4 million residents as of 2008. It was founded in 1902 to supply water and electricity to residents and businesses in Los Angeles and surrounding communities...
,
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the municipality of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123.445 inhabitants...
in
Southern CaliforniaSouthern California, or SoCal, is defined as the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its population centers around three major metropolitan areas, each of which have over 3 million people; the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area with over 12 million inhabitants, the San Bernardino-Riverside...
, United States. He was responsible for building the water aqueducts that allowed the city to grow into one of the largest in the world.
His methods of obtaining water for the city led to disputes collectively known as the
California Water WarsThe California Water Wars describes the disputes between Los Angeles, California and the Owens Valley over water rights. The disputes stem from Los Angeles' location in a semi-arid area, and the availability of water from Sierra Nevada runoff in the Owens Valley.-Early views of Owens Valley water...
. In 1928, his career ended in ignominy after the
St. Francis DamThe St. Francis Dam was a concrete gravity-arch dam, designed to create a reservoir as a storage point of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. The dam was located 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles, California, near the present city of Santa Clarita...
failed just hours after he had given it a personal safety inspection.
Early life
He was born in
BelfastBelfast is the capital of and the largest city in Northern Ireland, a constituent country of the United Kingdom. It is the seat of devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly. It is the largest urban area in the province of Ulster, and the second largest city on the island of...
,
Northern IrelandNorthern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and it is situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
. His parents Hugh and Ellen Mulholland were
DublinerDublin is the largest city and capital of Ireland. It is officially known in Irish as Baile Átha Cliath or Áth Cliath ; the English name comes from the Irish Dubh Linn meaning "black pool". It is located near the midpoint of Ireland's east coast, at the mouth of the River Liffey and at the...
s and they returned to the city a few years after William's birth. His older brother, also called
HughMulholland Brothers is a manufacturer of luggage, briefcases and Sporting Goods. Located along the San Francisco Bay, Mulholland Brothers deals in leather and sturdy stitching.- History :...
, had been born in 1827. At the time of Mulholland's birth, his brother was working as a guard for the
Royal MailRoyal Mail is the national postal service of the United Kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the brands Royal Mail , Parcelforce Worldwide and General Logistics Systems...
.
In 1862 his mother died when he was seven years old. Three years later his father remarried. After having been beaten by his father for receiving bad marks in school, Mulholland ran off to sea. At 15, he was a member of the British Merchant Navy. He spent the next four years as a seaman primarily sailing Atlantic routes. In 1874 he immigrated to
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
with his brother
Hugh MulhollandMulholland Brothers is a manufacturer of luggage, briefcases and Sporting Goods. Located along the San Francisco Bay, Mulholland Brothers deals in leather and sturdy stitching.- History :...
. He arrived in
Los AngelesLos Angeles is the largest city in the state of California and the second largest in the United States. Often abbreviated as L.A. and nicknamed The City of Angels, Los Angeles has an estimated population of 3.8 million and spans over in Southern California...
in 1877.
Initial career in Los Angeles
When Mulholland arrived in the town of Los Angeles, which at the time had a population of about 9,000, he quickly decided to return to life at sea as work was hard to find. On his way to the port at San Pedro to find a ship, however, he accepted a job digging a
wellA water well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, boring or drilling to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The well water is drawn by an electric submersible pump, a vertical turbine pump, a handpump or a mechanical pump...
. After a brief stint in Arizona where he prospected for gold and worked on the
Colorado RiverThe Colorado River , or the Red River, is a river in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains...
, he obtained a job as Deputy Zanjero with the newly formed Los Angeles Water Company (LAWC). (In California during the Spanish and Mexican administrations water was delivered to Los Angeles in a large open ditch, or zanja. The man who tended the ditch was known as a zanjero).
In 1880 Mulholland oversaw the laying of the first iron water pipeline in Los Angeles. Mulholland left the employment of the LAWC briefly in 1884 but returned in mid-December of that same year. He left again in 1885 and worked for the Sespe Land and Water Company. As part of his compensation he was granted twenty acres on Sespe Creek. In 1886 he returned to the LAWC and, in October of that year, became a naturalized American citizen. At the end of that year he was made the superintendent of the LAWC. In 1898, the Los Angeles city government decided not to renew the contract with the LAWC. Four years later the Los Angeles Department of Water was established with Mulholland as its head.
Water Superintendent
Mulholland, who was best described as a self-taught engineer, was now laying the foundations that would transform L.A. from a tiny Californian town into today's
metropolisA metropolis is a big city, in most cases with over half a million inhabitants in the city proper, and with a population of at least one million living in its urban agglomeration. Big cities belonging to a larger urban agglomeration, but which are not the core of that agglomeration, are not...
. Up until then, Los Angeles' growth had been limited due to its geography and arid conditions as it lay on a
chaparralChaparral is a shrubland or heathland plant community found primarily in the U.S. state of California and in the northern portion of the Baja California peninsula, Mexico. It is shaped by a Mediterranean climate and wildfire...
-covered desert. But as Mulholland's public works began to send thousands of gallons of water across the area, irrigation and expansion quickly followed.
The
Los Angeles AqueductThe Los Angeles Aqueduct system comprising the Los Angeles Aqueduct and the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct, is a water conveyance operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power...
, completed in November, 1913, took water from the
Owens ValleyOwens Valley is the arid valley of the Owens River in southeastern California in the United States. The valley is approximately long, trending north-south, and is bounded by the Inyo Mountains on the east, on the southeast by the Coso Range, on the south by Rose Valley, on the west by the Sierra...
in Central California in a project requiring over 2,000 workers and 164 tunnels. Water reached a reservoir in the
San Fernando ValleyThe San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in Southern California, United States. More than half of the city of Los Angeles' land area lies within the San Fernando Valley...
on November 5. At the opening ceremony, Mulholland said of this engineering feat: The words are said to be "the five most famous words in the city's history". Mulholland's power grew, his offices were, at one time, on the top floor of
Sid GraumanSidney Patrick Grauman was an American showman who created one of Southern California's most recognizable and visited landmarks, Grauman's Chinese Theater...
's
Million Dollar TheaterThe Million Dollar Theater at 307 S. Broadway in downtown Los Angeles is one of the first movie palaces built in the United States. It opened in February 1918...
. During this time, Mulholland was the favorite to become mayor of L.A. but when asked if he was considering running for office he replied "I'd rather give birth to a
porcupine Porcupines are rodents with a coat of sharp spines, or quills, that defend them from predators. They are endemic in both the Old World and the New World. Porcupines are the third largest of the rodents, behind the capybara and the beaver. Most porcupines are about long, with an long tail....
backward".
Mulholland also provided technical assistance on the
Panama CanalThe Panama Canal is a ship canal which joins the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific ocean. One of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, it had an enormous impact on shipping between the two oceans, replacing the long and treacherous route via the Drake Passage and Cape Horn...
.
California Water Wars
Mulholland stopped at nothing to acquire water rights in
Owens ValleyOwens Valley is the arid valley of the Owens River in southeastern California in the United States. The valley is approximately long, trending north-south, and is bounded by the Inyo Mountains on the east, on the southeast by the Coso Range, on the south by Rose Valley, on the west by the Sierra...
. By 1905, through aggressive purchases and bribery, he had acquired enough acreage to begin building the city's aqueduct.
When it opened in 1913, concerned homesteaders were told by officials from the Los Angeles water department that extracted water would only be for drinking supplies and not for irrigation. But this was not the case as demand soared in the rapidly expanding city of Los Angeles.
By 1928 the Los Angeles aqueduct had drained the
Owens LakeOwens Lake is a dry lake in the eastern Sierra Nevada of Inyo County, California, located about south of Lone Pine, California. Unlike most dry lakes in the Basin and Range Province that have been dry for thousands of years, Owens held significant water until 1924, fed by the Owens River.- History...
dry. This situation, and the diversion of the
Owens RiverThe Owens River is a river in eastern California in the United States, approximately long. It drains into an arid ranching basin, called the Owens Valley, on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The site of a long-running chapter of the bitter California Water Wars, the river drained...
, precipitated the
California Water WarsThe California Water Wars describes the disputes between Los Angeles, California and the Owens Valley over water rights. The disputes stem from Los Angeles' location in a semi-arid area, and the availability of water from Sierra Nevada runoff in the Owens Valley.-Early views of Owens Valley water...
.
Owens Valley
farmerA farmer is a person who raises living organisms for food or raw materials.- Definition :The term farmer usually applies to a person who grows field crops, and/or manages orchards or vineyards, or raises livestock or poultry such as chicken and cows...
s resisted
violentlyViolence is the expression of physical or verbal force against self or other, compelling action against one's will on pain of being hurt. Variant uses of the term refer to the destruction of non-living objects . Worldwide, violence is used as a tool of manipulation and also is an area of concern...
, even dynamiting the aqueduct at Jawbone Canyon. They also opened sluice gates to try and divert the flow of water. However the farmers' most successful tactic was to raise the price they asked for their land. Eventually Los Angeles' city administration was forced to negotiate.
Bullishly, Mulholland was quoted as saying he "half-regretted the demise of so many of the valley’s orchard trees, because now there were no longer enough trees to hang all the troublemakers who live there".
A fictionalized version of the story was used as the basis for the 1974 film
Chinatown starring
Jack NicholsonJohn Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director and producer. He is renowned for his often dark-themed portrayals of neurotic characters....
.
Reservoir disaster
Mulholland's career effectively ended on March 12, 1928, when the
St. Francis DamThe St. Francis Dam was a concrete gravity-arch dam, designed to create a reservoir as a storage point of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. The dam was located 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles, California, near the present city of Santa Clarita...
, which he had had built, failed just hours after he personally inspected the site. The collapse of the central part of the dam sent water into the Santa Clarita Valley, north of Los Angeles. Within seconds of the dam wall failing, a high torrent proceeded down the
Santa Clara riverbedThe Santa Clara River is approximately 116 mi long, located in southern California in the United States. It drains an area of the coastal mountains north of Los Angeles...
at 18 mph (29 km/h) swamping everything in its path until it reached the
Pacific OceanThe Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Tepre Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. It extends from the Arctic in the north to Antarctica in the south, bounded by Asia and...
at
VenturaSan Buenaventura, commonly referred to as Ventura, is the county seat of Ventura County, California, United States, incorporated in 1866. Ventura has a population of 106,744. Ventura is accessible via U.S. Route 101, State Route 33, and State Route 126....
.
By the next morning rescuers found an unbelievable catastrophe, the town of Santa Paula lay buried under of mud and debris; other parts of Ventura County were covered up to in flood deposits.
Recovery crews worked for days to dig out bodies and clear away the mud from around Santa Paula. The final death toll was estimated to be 450 killed, which included 42 school children.
Resignation
Mulholland took full responsibility for the worst US civil engineering disaster of the 20th century and resigned in March 1929. During the subsequent investigation, he said, "the only people I envy in this thing are the dead".
Though the inquest placed responsibility for the disaster on improper engineering, design, and governmental inspection, it also recommended that Mulholland not be held responsible because he had no way of knowing that the dam's site contained unstable rock formations (which were ultimately determined to be the cause of failure).
Later life
Shortly before his death, Mulholland provided input on the
Hoover DamHoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada. When completed in 1936, it was both the world's largest electric-power generating station and the world's largest concrete...
and
Colorado River AqueductThe Colorado River Aqueduct is a water conveyance in Southern California in the United States, operated by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California . The aqueduct impounds water from the Colorado River at Lake Havasu on the California-Arizona border west across the Mojave and...
project. He died in 1935 and is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in
Glendale, CaliforniaGlendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. It lies at the eastern end of the San Fernando Valley, is bisected by the Verdugo Mountains, and is a suburb in the Greater Los Angeles Area...
.
Legacy
Mulholland DriveMulholland Drive is a road in Los Angeles, California, United States, named after engineer William Mulholland. A portion of it is also called Mulholland Highway....
and
Mulholland HighwayMulholland Highway traverses east-west, through the Southern Transverse Ranges , between U.S. Route 101, and State Route 1 , Los Angeles. Mulholland Highway is the westernmost extension of Mulholland Drive...
within Los Angeles County are named in his honor.
In the 1990s, the artist
Frank BlackBlack Francis is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known as the frontman of the influential alternative rock band Pixies, with whom he performs under the stage name Black Francis. Following the band's breakup in 1993, he embarked on a solo career under the name Frank Black...
recorded two songs, "Ole Mulholland" (from
Teenager of the YearReleased in 1994, Teenager of the Year was Frank Black’s second solo album, produced by Eric Drew Feldman. Notable songs include " Abstract Plain" and "Headache"...
) and "St. Francis Dam Disaster" (from
Dog in the SandDog in the Sand, Frank Black's third album with backing group the Catholics was released by the Cooking Vinyl record label in 2001, and was produced by Nick Vincent. The album was generally met with favorable reviews...
) about the life and works of William Mulholland.
External links